Review: 'A Big Bold Beautiful Journey' is a big, bad waste of time

Sony Pictures Releasing, 2025.

Don't be lured onto this mundane and awful journey simply because of its stars.

The collective charm of two sensational actors, Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, is not nearly enough to make this painful film worth the trouble. The script doesn't allow for any chemistry between them, and there's not a hint of emotional authenticity. Are the characters dead and in some sort of weird, flowery purgatory? Did we die and go to movie hell? Does any of this matter?

Let me answer that last one for you: No. "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" could have been generated with AI, given its lack of humanity and its hollow emptiness. It's one of the worst films I've seen this year, or any year, so consider yourself warned.

Grade: D

David (Farrell) and Sarah (Robbie) randomly meet at a mutual friend's wedding. The only thing they seemingly have in common is that both of them had rented cars from a strange company simply called "A Car Rental Company" (or something equally generic). The rental agency is ran by two equally weird employees (?) played by Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who clearly have some ulterior motives and who seem to be some sort of cosmic match-makers.

The movie crosses clearly into the realm of fantasy when the characters begin discovering doors all over the place, often in the middle of nowhere. When they go through the doors, they both are transported back to different pivotal moments in each of their lives.

"A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" has all the energy of a dead man's cardiac monitor. A car crash midway through the film is shocking, not because we care if the passengers are harmed or not, but because it's like a defibrillator jolt to what had been a lifeless corpse of a plot.

The dialogue throughout is cringe-worthy and there are no real stakes to speak of. To their credit, Robbie and Farrell give it their all, but they aren't given a chance.

The only door worth finding was the exit door to the theater, and I couldn't run through it fast enough.

Grade: D

Genre: Drama, Fantasty, Romance.
Run Time: 1 hour 48 minutes.
Rated R.

Starring: Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kevin Kline, Lucy Thomas, Jennifer Grant, Hamish Linklater.

Directed by Kogonada ("After Yang").

"A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" is in theaters on Friday, September 19th, 2025.